Re-Drawing Perspectives on and of Contemporary Saudiyyat: Using Suwalif by and for the Saudi Women

In recent decades, Saudi Arabia has witnessed the implementation of various sociopolitical changes in terms of the direction and management of its society. In this dynamic environment, women in Saudi Arabia are being largely impacted by their navigation within the private and public spaces. This dissertation brings forth the lived experiences of ten, educated, middle-class women in Saudi Arabia to look at how they negotiate their subjectivities; the strategies they use to influence their subject positions within family and society; and how the women reconcile their subjectivities as in-between in an overall process of negotiation. Subjectivity creates a fluidity where there is continuous acting and shifting, and allows for insight into how these women are affected by their interactions. This work is informed by the interpretivist and poststructuralist theoretical frameworks and introduces a narrative methodology of suwalif as a social practice of speaking, retelling and uttering lived experiences of and through these ten saudiyyat. The methodology focuses on bringing their voices away from any overused biases and analyzes the data through narrative research using my expertise as an ‘insider’ to share their suwalif in a culturally sensitive manner. The women bring forth their subjectivities and lived experiences to provoke an uneasiness in conversations around gender that create a space for questioning normative discourses of power.

Department dc:contributor.department

Curriculum, Teaching and Learning

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Aldossari, Alaa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sykes, Heather HS

• Contemporary
• Discourse
• Narrative
• Saudi Arabia
• Saudi women
• Subjectivity

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/125472

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/125472